Start legislating like a grownup

Can one confer a New Year's resolution upon another? Here's one for our County Legislator Peter Harckham: Start legislating like a grownup. We have big problems, and they won't be solved with name calling, foot stomping and temper tantrums.

According to reports of the circus in the legislative chamber during the 2013 budget "negotiations," Mr. Harckham stormed out of the room, fleeing any public debate on the subject, and then - get this - shut off the lights and microphones and rang a loud bell again and again to disrupt the proceedings for those who stayed behind to do their jobs. You can't make this up.

I'm surprised he didn't shout "nanny nanny boo boo" on his way out the door.

Mr. Harckham now has the gall to criticize the budget that he refused to debate. And yet, in his In Reply article, nowhere does he mention that if only he had the guts to ask his union cronies to start pitching in for their health care, they could have avoided the very layoffs he so loudly bemoans.

It would have been an awkward conversation for him to have, for sure, since CSEA members line Harckham's campaign pockets and dutifully man his campaign phone banks, but it is one that the voters deserve.